Paulinho Tapajós - "Andança"

Marisa Monte - Carinhoso

Maria Bethânia (Morena do Mar)

Bar é fotografia - Tomas Dziubinski

Tomas Dziubinski

(Nikon D200, Nikkor AF-S DX 17-55 f/2.8G IF-ED)

Mantega: PIB do primeiro trimestre ‘será negativo’ - Josias de Souza - Blog do Josias - link (aqui) .

08/06/2009

Tomada pelas previsões oficiais, a realidade brasileira está cada dia mais inacreditável.

Mas chega uma hora em que não dá mais para fugir da verdade.

Não tendo realizado os sonhos que antevira, o governo vê-se compelido a realizar os seus pesadelos.

Nesta terça (9), o IBGE vai divulgar o resultado do PIB no primeiro trimestre de 2009.

Os caldeirões em que o instituto cozinha as estatísticas oficiais exalam o cheiro de queimado.

Com as labaredas a consumir-lhe a reputação de quiromante, Mantega apressa-se em avisar: O PIB de janeiro a março "certamente será negativo”.

Qual será o tamanho do vermelho? O ministro decerto já sabe. Mas prefere não comentar. O mercado fareja algo entre -1,5% e -2,5%.

Recorde-se que o PIB já fora negativo (-3,6%) no último trimestre de 2008. Significa dizer que o país vive uma recessão. Recessão técnica, no jargão dos economistas.

Mantega, porém, já providenciou uma bola de cristal novinha em folha –ano de fabricação 2009, modelo 2010.

Afirma agora que a recessão é coisa do passado. Os dados do IBGE mostrarão o “retrovisor”. E o governo prefere olhar na direção do pára-brisa.

"Neste ano, trabalhamos com 1% [de crescimento do PIB]”. Outra previsão? Não, não. Absolutamente. “É mais uma meta que uma projeção”, diz Mantega. “É um desafio".

Não seria mais um sonho? No Ministério da Fazenda, Mantega assegura, "não dá tempo para sonhar". E tome previsão para 2010: 4% de crescimento.

Ouvidos pelo BC, os operadores do mercado prevêem coisa diferente. Retração de até 0,73% em 2009 e crescimento de no máximo 3,5% em 2010.

Nesta segunda (8), o IBGE levou ao notiticiário dados do mês de abril. Indicam que, no alvorecer do segundo trimestre do ano, a indústria traz os joelhos dobrados.

O nível de emprego nas fábricas caiu 0,7% na comparação com março. É o sétimo recuo consecutivo.

Comparando-se com abril de 2008, a queda foi ainda maior: 5,6%. Foi o maior tombo desde que a estatística começou a ser produzida, em 2001.

Submetido ao calor das chamas, o Copom reúne-se nesta terça (9). Na quarta (10), divulga a nova taxa de juros. Estima-se que deve cair pelo menos 0,75 ponto percentual.

A Selic, hoje fixada em 10,5% ao ano, desceria ao patamar de um dígito. É coisa jamais vista na história desse país.

-PS.: Ilustração via blog do Baptistão.

Escrito por Josias de Souza às 16h19

Bar é fotografia - Soren Thorsen

Soren Thorsen

Flamingoer

(1280 x 1024)

Após a quarta dose - bar é prosa

O voo 447 e os mitos recorrentes


(luiz alfredo motta fontana)

A probabilidade do acidente, do Airbus 330, decorrer de erro de leitura dos computadores a bordo, atinge em cheio o imaginário popular.

Aqui a presença recorrente do dito popular: "a vida imita a arte"

A sensação de desamparo que permeia a platéia ao acompanhar a "revolta" do "robot pistoleiro", vivido por Yul Brynner em Westworld, só encontraria a mesma intensidade face aos "delírios' de HAL 9000, o mítico computador de 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Talvez esse fato explique a ausência de matérias que repercutam a sempre presente especulação sobre imputação de responsabilidades, quer sobre empresas, quer sobre autoridades responsáveis por segurança de voos.

Aplauda-se, como louvável novidade, a isenção midiática, evitando-se qualquer insinuação sobre possível fragilidade na conduta dos comandantes da aeronave.

O comportamento ético, comedido, até mesmo cool, quer das autoridades francesas ou brasileiras, apontam para nova realidade comportamental em tragédias, indo de encontro ao tradicional recato francês em ocasiões similares. Nem mesmo a exceção incômoda proporcionada pela inusitada performance do ministro afeito à sucuris, corrompe esse novo quadro.

Michael Crichton, autor e diretor de Westword, ou Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, anteciparam a nossa perplexidade face à "loucura" eventual da tão apreciada tecnologia embarcada.

A arte triunfou e antecipou catarses.

Air France searchers recover 16 bodies - The Times, uk - link (aqui)

June 8, 2009

Charles Bremner in Paris

French and Brazilian Navy vessels have recovered 16 bodies from the Atlantic Ocean at the spot where the Air France Airbus crashed last week.

The finds came after the search for remains from the crash narrowed dramatically with the initial recovery on Saturday of the bodies of two men.

A seat, an air ticket and personal belongings were also pulled out of the Atlantic 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast, near the place where the Airbus went down.

The debris included a nylon backpack containing a computer and vaccination card and a leather briefcase with the Air France flight 447 ticket inside.

The finds came as French officials confirmed that the airliner may have lost control after its speed sensors were blocked by ice.

At the time of last Monday's crash, Air France was in the process of replacing what it knew to be ice-prone sensors on the A330 series but had not yet done so on the aircraft which disappeared with all 228 aboard.

On Saturday, reports from the French investigation bureau (BEA) and Air France intensified suspicion that the four-minute sequence of events leading to the crash began when the "pitot tubes", three narrow inlets under the airliner nose, were blocked as the plane flew through a violent tropical storm.

Faulty speed readings from the sensors were followed by the aircraft's electronic flight system going haywire. The pilots were left hand-flying the aircraft with almost no information on its condition and performance, according to a cascade of data which were sent automatically by the plane to Air France headquarters. "The wrong speed information meant it was like having a cerebral haemorrhage for the computers," said Bernard Chabbert, an aviation expert, on French state radio.

Experienced pilots said that it would be impossible to control the aircraft in such a predicament. Airliners are potentially unstable when flying at high altitude with high loads. There is little margin between the stalling speed and the excessive "overspeed" both of which can send them out of control. With inadequate information in the midst of high turbulence, the crew would have been effectively blind.

Dominique Bussreau, the Transport Minister, said that it was too early to reach conclusions but he confirmed that the speed readings and their impact on the Airbus automated flight system were at the focus of the inquiry

"Obviously the pilots did not have the right speed showing, which can lead to two bad consequences for the life of the aircraft: under-speed, which can lead to a stall, and over-speed, which can lead to the aircraft breaking up because it is approaching the speed of sound and the structure of the plane is not made for resisting such speeds," said the Minister. The high altitudes which can lead stall speed to equal the over-speed is known to jet pilots as "coffin corner".

Questions are certain to be asked about the procedures of Airbus, the aircraft's manufacturer and Air France. The airline said that it had ignored Airbus suggestions to await test results and started a programme replacing the pitot tubes on the A330 after a series of incidents showed that they were prone to ice. Pitot icing has been known since the beginning of aviation. Aircraft systems heat the intakes to prevent icing. An electrical failure could have led to icing for lack of heat, but the investigators have indicated that power was running to the three independent sensors when they went wrong.

Comercial antigo - Mesbla (1982)

Charge do dia

Clayton - O Povo - Fortaleza, CE

Air France 447: The computer crash - The Times, uk - link (aqui)

Airbus A330-200 similar to the Air France plane which vanished from radar after leaving Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on route to Paris.

June 7, 2009

As the first bodies from Air France 447 are found, investigators suspect a terrifying mix of weather and technological weakness was responsible

Richard Woods and Matthew Campbell

When things go wrong at high altitude, one of the deadliest challenges for pilots is a phenomenon known as “coffin corner”. This is the point, tens of thousands of feet up, where the margin for error in controlling a sophisticated modern airliner becomes tiny. Investigators are now wondering whether Air France flight 447, which disappeared last week with 228 people on board, may have flown into coffin corner never to escape.

For amid all the speculation and mystery, two events are clear in the worst aviation disaster for half a decade. At 3am BST last Monday morning flight 447, a four-year-old Airbus A330-200, reported that it had encountered “stormy weather with strong turbulence”. Ten minutes later, the plane’s autopilot disengaged, according to its automatic communications and reporting system (Acars).

Somewhere around 35,000ft, with storm winds raging and the plane buffeted on all sides, the crew found themselves trying to fly 230 tons of electronic wizardry by hand. At that altitude, it is far harder than passengers imagine.

Whoever was in the pilot’s seat was looking at two computer screens, a host of other instruments and two rudder pedals – but no traditional hand controls. Instead, an A330 pilot reaches for a small joy-stick to one side. It looks a bit like the control for a games console. Through that “sidestick”, the pilot flies the plane with electronic signals, rather than any mechanical linkages.

“It’s tricky. At altitude big planes wallow about,” said Roger Guiver, a former British Airways pilot. “It’s like trying to steer the QE2 with a 2ft rudder.” Jean-Pierre Albran, a former French air force pilot, said: “On a [Boeing] 747, you feel things with your hands. On an Airbus, you’re just looking at screens.”

On a British web forum for pilots, one contributor wrote: “Have any of you hand-flown an Airbus (or other aircraft heavy with fuel) at those flight levels even in smooth air? You are fighting to stay within the flying envelope . . . small margin for error on a good day, let alone a dark and stormy night.

“Take a jet aircraft and put it high, heavy, and run it through rough enough air and the laws of aerodynamics are waiting.”

In those laws, speed is a crucial factor. The thinner the air, the more speed needed for the wings to maintain their lift. Too slow: you stall.

At the same time, the faster the air passes over the wing, the more the centre of lift moves backwards, pushing the nose of the plane down. Too fast: you nosedive.

At high altitude the gap between those two critical speeds gets narrower and narrower. That’s coffin corner - and that was one of the crises facing the crew of AF447 as the plane plunged through the thunderheads in the early hours of last Monday.

It is now clear the crew, as they fought to stay airborne, no longer knew how fast their plane was travelling. According to Airbus and the accident investigators, the pilots’ instruments were giving “inconsistent” readings of the plane’s speed.

Did the crew or computer mistakenly think there was a danger of stalling? Did they power up, tipping the plane out of control and tearing it apart in the turbulence? Or did a violent updraft simply drive them too close to coffin corner?

Though no one yet knows for sure what destroyed the plane, investigators are concerned that it was not caused, as first suggested, by a lightning strike or a bomb or a meteorite. Instead they fear it was a fatal collision of high technology and the brute force of nature.

THE passengers who gathered at Rio de Janeiro’s airport last Sunday evening for AF447 spanned more than 30 nationalities, including five Britons. Eithne Walls, a young doctor from Belfast, was heading home from a holiday with two Irish doctors. Alexander Bjoroy, an 11-year-old boarder at Clifton College in Bristol, was returning after spending half term with his family. Two Brazilians, Bianca Machado Cotta, a doctor, and Carlos Eduardo de Melo Macario, a lawyer, had married the day before near Rio; they were off on honeymoon to Paris. Silvio Barbato, conductor of the Rio symphony orchestra, was leaving behind his violinist girlfriend, Antonella Pareschi. Later she said of Barbato: “He always used to tell me, jokingly, that he would not simply die, but disappear.”

If they worried about flying, they didn’t show it. Not so a Swedish family who had a habit of travelling separately in case disaster struck. Christine Schnabl boarded AF447 with her five-year-old son, Philipe; she left her husband to follow a few hours later with their three-year-old daughter on another flight. On such choices lives turn. The route from Rio to Paris passes through an area known as the ITCZ - the intertropical convergence zone - where hot, humid trade winds meet, creating storms with updrafts that can reach 100mph. Weather maps for that night show “numerous cumulonimbus towers rising to at least 51,000ft”, with thunderstorms and severe turbulence. But it was not exceptional.

Several hours after take-off AF447 went out of range of land radar and was heading across the Atlantic into the ITCZ. At night, pilots use onboard radar to spot storms ahead and divert sideways round them because they often rise too high to fly over. Did AF447 fail to spot a storm as it tried to find a way through the bad weather?

“Modern weather radar is very good,” said Guiver. “You get a good return [signal] off water droplets. The strength of return determines the colour you see on your screen: green, amber or red. Red is the core of the storm.”

At high altitude, however, the rain in a storm turns to ice crystals - and radar is much less effective at picking up ice.

Another danger is that, at the top of a storm, strong cross winds can blow turbulence out to one side, down-wind from the main updraft, in a formation known as an anvil.

“You always avoid a storm upwind of the core, or the anvil might catch you out,” said Guiver. If AF447 had accidentally hit an anvil, tossing it beyond its normal flying parameters, it could have made the autopilot disengage.

Crew error cannot be discounted. An internal Air France report, seen last week by The Sunday Times, said “the reliability of these [fly-by-wire] aircraft has the consequence of reducing the pilots’ appreciation of risk”. It warned against “complacency” and recommended that training should include more time on flight simulators.

Yet it seems unlikely to have been pilot error alone, especially since planes regularly cross the ITCZ and the crew of AF447 was experienced. At 58, Captain Marc Dubois had 11,000 hours of flying time. So did a malfunction precipitate or contribute to trouble? On the face of it, the A330 had an excellent safety record, with more than 550 planes built and no passenger fatalities since it went into service in 1993. Nevertheless, it has suffered some unnerving incidents.

Last October a Qantas A330 was flying at 37,000ft over Western Australia when it suddenly “pitched nose-down”, in the words of an official report. Henry Bishop, a passenger from Oxford, described the panic: “I feared for my life. It just fell hundreds of feet. It just fell forever and there were people flying everywhere.”

One crew member and 11 passengers were seriously hurt, and more than 100 suffered minor injuries before the pilot recovered control and made an emergency landing. A recent report on the incident found that one of the plane’s computers, known as Adiru (air data inertial reference unit), had “started providing erroneous data”. Back-up systems are in place, but other errors occurred and the “computers subsequently commanded the pitch-down movements”. Computers such as Adiru rely on data from sensors all over the aircraft. One that supplies information on airspeed is the pitot (pronounced “pee-toe”), a probe that measures the pressure of air rushing into it. If it gets blocked, it can start supplying incorrect information to the fly-by-wire system.

In 2001 an air worthiness directive for the A330, issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration, noted: “Unreliable airspeed may be caused by a radome [radar housing] destruction or obstructed pitots.”

The danger was illustrated only weeks later when a different model, an Airbus A319, suddenly found its instruments giving different airspeeds as it flew into Heathrow. At 6,000ft the autopilot disengaged without warning and the captain had to take manual control.

Though suspicions fell on the Adiru, no faults were found. Instead a pitot was discovered to have blockages, causing false speed readings.

There are also problems with the probes icing up in the freezing air at high altitudes, despite a heating system supposed to prevent it. One contributor to a pilot’s web-forum last week alleged: “The A330 is a beautiful aircraft but it has shown, again and again, very susceptible to probes icing.”

Did a pitot ice up and confuse the fly-by-wire system? Did the computers wrongly order more, or less, thrust?

What is clear is that the autopilot of AF447 disengaged and massive system failures rapidly followed. One minute later an Acars message reported “multiple faults regarding Adiru”.

Two minutes later flight control primary computer one failed, then flight control secondary computer one. Both those systems, however, have back-ups. Something far more drastic was also happening and the plane was out of control.

Four minutes after the autopilot disengaged, the cabin suddenly depressurised, perhaps with explosive force.

Although planes are designed to withstand enormous stresses, those caused by turbulence can be huge. That was demonstrated when an Airbus A300 flew into the wake of a Boeing 747 just after take-off from John F Kennedy airport in New York in November 2001. The turbulence - and the Airbus pilot’s attempts to correct for it - sheared off the A300’s rudder and vertical stabiliser. Without them the plane was doomed, and 265 people died.

Had AF447 suffered a structural failure? Did a window break or wing shear off? Whatever it was, the passengers must have been terrified. It was night over the Atlantic, lightning splitting the sky, the aircraft jolting in the turbulence, systems failing. Then massive decompression, cabin air gone and, outside, the temperature -30C or below. Mercifully they may not have suffered long.

As Philippe Juvin, a French doctor, explained: “If depressurisation is extremely brutal, you lose consciousness and a deep coma sets in. It would have been like falling asleep.”

INITIAL reports that wreckage from the plane had been spotted floating over a wide area have proved false, with the material turning out to be detritus from ships. Last night, however, the Brazilian air force reported that it had found two male bodies from AF447.

The search will continue with a French submarine heading for the area. The aircraft’s two “black box” data recorders - one for flight data; the other for cockpit voice recordings - can withstand immersion up to nearly 20,000ft and emit an audio beep for up to a month. But the chances of finding them must be slim in an area where the ocean floor is mountainous and up to 9,000ft deep.

Investigators admit that, without the black boxes, the full causes of the crash may remain elusive. But yesterday Airbus revealed that the Acars messages had pointed to 24 errors in the fly-by-wire system. It said: “There was inconsistency between the different measured airspeeds.” It also emerged that Air France is now replacing pitot tubes on all its medium- and long-haul jets - which it had previously been advised to do but had failed to carry out.

That will come as little comfort to Marie-Noëlle Linguet, whose husband Pascal was on AF447. He had just posted a card to his wife. Shortly before he boarded the aircraft, he rang his wife to say he would be home before the card arrived.

When news broke that the plane was missing, Marie-Noëlle could barely comprehend it. “I didn’t believe it,” she said. “I keep seeing him on the plane.” He never made it home. All his widow now hopes is that his last words will.

US journalists sentenced to 12 years in North Korea labour camp - The Times, uk - link (aqui)

(reuters)

Euna Lee and Laura Ling

June 8, 2009

Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor

A court in North Korea has sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labour, adding to the pressure on the US Government to respond to weeks of unanswered provocation by the isolated dictatorship.

A terse report on North Korea’s state news agency today announced the outcome of the closed trial of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested in March close to the border with China. “The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing,” it said, “. . . and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour.”

Before the announcement of the verdict, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, suggested that Washington might once again designate North Korea officially as a sponsor of terrorism. “We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” the White House said in a statement.

Two months after a long-range rocket test, and two weeks after Pyongyang’s second nuclear test, both the US Government and the international community are struggling to formulate a meaningful response.

In an interview conducted over the weekend, Mrs Clinton said that she would examine the possibility of relisting North Korea as a terrorist state, a status removed formally last year by the Bush Administration in return for what looked at the time like North Korean steps towards denuclearisation.

“We’re just beginning to look at it,” she told ABC television. “We believe that the charges against these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation . . . clearly, we don’t want this pulled into the political issues that we have with North Korea or the concerns that are being expressed in the United Nations Security Council. This is separate; it is a humanitarian issue.”

The sentence imposed on Ms Ling and Ms Lee exceeded the maximum ten years of imprisonment predicted by academic specialists in North Korean law, and the nature of the “grave crime” of which they have been convicted has still not been made clear.

In 12 weeks of captivity, they have received only three visits — from the Swedish Ambassador to Pyongyang, who represents US interests in the absence of formal diplomatic relations — and been allowed to write a handful of letters and make one telephone each to their families.

“As their days in detention progress, we have become increasingly concerned about their well-being and state of mind,” their families said in a statement recently. “Though the girls are strong, we know that they are very, very scared.”

Ms Ling, 32, a Chinese American, and Ms Lee, who is of Korean origins, were arrested on March 17 after travelling to China and visiting its long and porous border with North Korea. They were researching a film about the many poor North Koreans who sneak into China to work, trade, smuggle and escape the harsh repression in their own country.

They were accompanied by a Chinese guide and by an American cameraman, Mitch Koss, who also worked for Current TV, an internet-based channel founded by Al Gore, the former US vice-president. After the arrest of his women colleagues, Mr Koss returned safely to the US and has never spoken publicly about whether they took the risky step of crossing the frozen river that marks the frontier, or were lured or abducted to the other side.

The two women were tried at the Pyongyang Central Court, the highest court in the country from which there is no appeal.

The pace of North Korea’s provocations has prompted speculation that the Government is attempting to distract its population from insecurity caused by a transition of power from the supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, to his youngest son. Mr Kim, 67, was seriously ill last year, and recent reports in the North Korean media have, most usually, emphasised his frailty and fatigue rather than presenting him as a superhuman.

“A man is not made of iron and must take care of his own body,” he was quoted as saying. “But I have no time to do so. Why wouldn’t I be tired and need more sleep? Even though I’m tired, I endure it.”

Gordon Brown loses another female minister after poll disaster - The Times, uk - link (aqui)

June 8, 2009

Philippe Naughton

Brown gets a break | Plan to appease voters | Peter Riddell's commentary | Story of the night | Advances for UKIP | Leading article | Libby Purves | Lord Falconer: Labour needs a new leader

Gordon Brown was dealt a further blow in his fight for political survival today with the resignation of a junior minister who warned that the Prime Minister's determination to cling to power could destroy the Labour Party.

The resignation came as Labour digested the worst electoral results in its history after winning just 15 per cent of the vote in the European elections, trailing in third behind the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Jane Kennedy, minister of state in charge of farming and the environment, said that she told Mr Brown that she could no longer support his leadership as he reshuffled the junior ranks of his Government this morning.

"We had a friendly exchange of views but I made it clear that I could not offer him the support he was asking for," Ms Kennedy told Sky News from her constituency in Liverpool Wavertree.

"He himself has said, in the press conference last Friday, that he wants to fight on, but my fear is that it will be to the bitter end of the Labour Party," she added.

The latest ministerial departure was not as damaging as some of the big-name resignations last week, when Mr Brown lost six senior ministers and was thwarted in his desire to promote his closest ally, Ed Balls, to the Treasury.

But the fact that he has lost another female minister after the resignations of Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint — the latter of whom accused him of using women as "window dressing" — suggests that Mr Brown's style of government is alienating his party.

Ms Kennedy denied that her gender had ever held her back as a minister but did complain about No 10 smear campaigns and said that there had not been a proper debate about the Damian McBride e-mail row.

As well as completing his reshuffle, Mr Brown was also preparing for a meeting tonight with members of the parliamentary Labour Party, where backbenchers will get their first real chance to address their complaints to him.

That meeting will take place against the backdrop of an electoral rout in which Labour was beaten in traditional strongholds across the country. It was even beaten into second place in Wales, the first time Labour had lost the popular vote there since 1918 and also came second in Scotland, behind the SNP.

Among the fringe parties making gains was the British National Party (BNP), which won its first two parliamentary seats, including one for the party's leader Nick Griffin in the North West of England

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, celebrated his party's performance and said that Labour had "lost the trust of the people".

Of the BNP gains, he added: "It is desperately depressing. It is obviously a depressing day, for all of us. The BNP are completely beyond the pale. They do not even let black and Asian people into their party — they are an appalling bunch of people. It is depressing.

"What the mainstream parties have to do is prove their worth, get on the doorstep, explain to people how we are going to take up their concerns, how we are going to respond to their issues. That is the way to beat these dreadful people. I hope that this is the extent of what they can do and they go no further."

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary who represents a parliamentary seat in the North West, said that the result was a sad moment for British politics.

He said: "It is deeply uncomfortable to see the BNP polling in the numbers they have. Whatever the country’s problems, the BNP are never the answer. The BNP is the ultimate protest vote, a two-fingered vote and largely a comment on Westminster politics."

In his victory speech at Manchester Town Hall, Mr Griffin said: "For the last 50 years, more and more of the people of Britain have watched with concern, growing dismay and sometimes anger as an out-of-touch political elite has transformed our country before our very eyes.

"It is not just a matter of mass immigration, although that is an obvious symptom of it, it is handing us over to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, it’s turning the common wealth of this country, our public services, into private properties for giant corporations, in banning St George’s Day festivals while encouraging everyone else to celebrate their festivals, usually with taxpayers’ money. In so many ways the liberal elite have transformed this country."

Arriving at an international trade conference in London this morning, Lord Mandelson issued a call for unity and put Labour's poor performance down to voters' anger at the expenses scandal and disunity among Labour MPs.

The Business Secretary, who is now effectively Mr Brown's deputy and his most influential supporter in the party, argued that the vote share percentages did not tell the whole story, given the low turnout of around 35 per cent.

"I think what’s interesting about these results is Labour voters have not switched en masse to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or other parties," said Lord Mandelson.

"In the main, what they seem to be doing is registering a protest by withholding their vote and staying at home. I can understand why they’re doing this. They are furious about the MPs’ expenses and allowances at Westminster and, frankly, they’re furious, too, about what they see as disunity amongst Labour MPs at Westminster.

"It is simply not possible for people to say ’I resign today, but you should vote Labour tomorrow or the day after’. So it is perfectly clear to me, to get the Labour vote back and out voting again, we need to clean up the mess of expenses and allowances at Westminster, and do that quickly. But we have also got to see unity restored amongst Labour MPs."

Highs and lows

Labour suffered its worst result in any nationwide poll since the 1910 General Election. Even under Michael Foot in 1983 it managed 28 per cent

The UKIP enjoyed its best results since the party was founded in 1993

The Scottish National Party took its highest ever share of the votes in a European election in Scotland

The British National Party won its first seats in nationwide elections, with two MEPs on their way to Brussels

The Conservatives won the largest number of votes in Wales, the first time Labour has failed to top a poll there since 1918

The Green Party had its best ever night, increasing its vote by up to 50 per cent in some regions, but narrowly failed to increase its tally of MEPs

D-Day for Labour - The Independent Minds, uk - link (aqui)

Posted by Andrew Grice

• Monday, 8 June 2009 at 12:20 pm

Another day of disaster for Labour. Its European election results are truly awful: 15 per cent of the votes and a humiliating third, behind the UKIP. You know when a party has done terribly when it stops even trying to put a gloss on the results. That has happened to Labour.
To rub salt in the wounds of Labour MPs, the BNP won two seats in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber, thanks largely to the collapsing Labour vote.
Labour MPs are agonising today about what to do about Gordon Brown. The results leave him perilously close to the edge. But backbenchers' hopes that someone in the Cabinet will give the PM a final push have not materialised yet. Brown addresses his backbenchers tonight. It may not be the end of this drama. Although some MPs may call for him to quit, they expect an orchestrated show of support by Brown loyalists. The anti-Brown rebels will consider their next moves after the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting. More bad news as Brown completes his ministerial reshuffle. Jane Kennedy, an environment minister, has walked out, accusing Downing Street of smears and bullying.
Labour can't go on like this much longer. It's surely decision day, and make your mind up time, for Labour MPs.

Brown on the brink after Labour routed in Euro poll - The Independent, uk - link (aqui)

Gordon Brown metlocal Labour activists in Stratford, east London yesterday. He pledged to tackle economic woes and clean up Parliament

By Gavin Cordon and Emily Ashton, Press Association

Monday, 8 June 2009

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman today rejected calls for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to step down in the wake of a devastating rout for the party in the European elections.

Ms Harman said she was "very disappointed indeed" by Labour's results but she insisted Mr Brown was the right person to lead the country through the economic downturn and clean up the MPs' expenses system.

"I do actually think that Gordon Brown and the Government have got the best strategy for helping the economy through these difficult times, and I know people are blazing angry with us at the moment," she told GMTV.

"They told us to our face but they want us to do better, they want us to sort out the economy and they want us to sort out what they regard as the aberration of expenses."

Her remarks came as Mr Brown's political survival hung in the balance as the Labour Party was beaten into third place by the UK Independence Party (Ukip) in the popular vote, while the far-right British National Party achieved a major breakthrough by gaining its first Euro seats.

In her GMTV interview, Ms Harman said she believed that Labour had borne the brunt of voters' anger over the revelations about MPs' expenses.

She told GMTV: "What they (the voters) are angry about is us, it is like 'We expect the Tories to be doing that on expenses but we expect better from you, and you are supposed to represent people who have got a struggle to make ends meet and, look, so many of your MPs seem to be abusing their expenses'.

"Now the fact that MPs from all parties were involved didn't mean that people weren't more angry with us."

She added: "We are going to take our responsibility to sort it out."

She said the result was not "about the leadership of the Labour Party".

"It certainly was not people saying we do not want Gordon Brown," she said. She further rejected calls for a snap General Election in the midst of a global economic downturn.

Her defence of Mr Brown comes as the scale of the defeat could prove a catalyst for rebel Labour backbenchers manoeuvring to oust the Premier to come out into the open and launch a direct leadership challenge.

With almost all the results from across the UK in, Labour had managed just 15.4% of the popular vote to Ukip's 17.5%.

The Tories had 28.3% while the Liberal Democrats were in fourth place with 14%.

Despite the victories in the North West and Yorkshire, the BNP had a smaller share of the vote than the Greens, with 6.6% to their 8.8%.

Labour lost five seats to leave them with just 11, two fewer than Ukip with 13, and 13 behind the Conservative tally of 24.

Labour MPs returning to Westminster today will be weighing up whether they now need to ditch Mr Brown if they are going to stand any chance at the next General Election.

The results will set the scene for a tense meeting this evening of the Parliamentary Labour Party where the Prime Minister is expected to address his shell-shocked backbenchers.

Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer - the most senior figure so far to break cover - repeated his call for a new leader to re-unify the party.

"I think unity will only come with a leader that the mainstream votes for," he said.

There will be particular dismay that the party has fallen so far that it opened the door for the BNP to take seats in Yorkshire and the Humber and in the North West where the party's leader, Nick Griffin, was elected.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said it was "deeply uncomfortable" to see the BNP polling in such large numbers.

He said they had been the beneficiaries of an "anti-politics mood" which had hit all the main parties in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal.

"It is a sad moment in British politics," he said.

"The BNP is like the ultimate protest vote. It is how to deliver the establishment a two-fingered salute. I think, largely, it is a comment on Westminster politics."

Conservative Party chairman Eric Pickles said the BNP had been able to make its breakthrough because of Labour weakness.

"What has essentially happened is that there has been a retreat particularly by Labour but we haven't been able to fill that particular vacuum," he said.

"What seems to have happened is that Labour voters have been squeezed beyond what we thought was possible - and the BNP has been the beneficiary of that.

"I'm not pleased about that."

Mr Griffin said Labour was paying the price for turning the country into "a crime-ridden slum with no industry left" and said he was determined to build on their success.

"The party is going to go on and grow very rapidly. We're going to be major contenders in a number of places in the next General Election and the next wave of council elections," he said.

One of the most dramatic results of the night came in Wales where Labour was beaten into second place for the first time in any election since 1918.

Labour was also heading for second place in Scotland behind the Scottish National Party, while in two English regions - the South East and the South West - it was beaten into fifth place behind the Greens.

A jubilant Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the result showed that his party's unexpected third place in the last European elections was no fluke.

"This time we have come second in a major national election. That is a hell of an achievement especially given that, over the last three or four weeks, we have not really had a proper debate about the European question," he said.

Senior Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes said his party had held its ground while there had been a "significant loss" for Labour.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne told Sky News: "We are pretty pleased with this set of election results. Now we have to go and prove to the British people that we are worthy of their trust."

He added: "You hear now Labour politicians coming out with this line that 'It was the expenses scandal wot did for us' but the truth is that, if this election had been held three or four weeks ago, we know that Labour would have done very badly because they have completely lost connection with the British people.

"Just using the expenses scandal, as Labour politicians and the Prime Minister are trying to do, to excuse their very bad performance, I think, is a red herring.

"The expenses scandal did hit all the main parties over the last few weeks but I think David Cameron was able to capture the national mood and show some national leadership which Gordon Brown, frankly, was unable to show."

Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it was a pretty successful result for us.

"Combined with the local elections, we have won in parts of the country where we have not won for years. We have topped the poll in Wales. In the local elections we did well in Lancashire and the Midlands and in the West Country.

"We have a massive lead over the Labour Party, our principal rivals, at the next general election and we have picked up MEP seats.

"So, given all the problems all the major parties have had on expenses, the fact that unlike Labour and the Liberal Democrats - who both saw their vote share fall, we saw our vote share increase, and I think it is something we can take some satisfaction from."

Mr Osborne rejected suggestions that the Conservatives' decision to leave the European People's Party grouping in the European Parliament and form their own eurosceptic grouping would leave them isolated from other mainstream centre-right parties, such as those led by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel.

The shadow chancellor said: "Instead of being reluctant tenants of the EPP, we will be friendly neighbours.

"By the way, David Cameron spoke last night to (European Commission president) Jose Manuel Barroso to make that clear. We have got open lines of communication with all our friends."

He denied that the Tories would be allying themselves with homophobic and racist parties from countries such as Poland in their new grouping.

"Of course, there are one or two pretty eccentric views amongst politicians in Poland," he said.

"We are aligning with both the Polish Law and Justice Party - whose leader is president of Poland - and the Czech ODS, whose leader was recently prime minister.

"Both these parties are mainstream centre-right parties committed to reform of the European Union. We are going to form a strong group in the European Parliament. We hope other people will come and join us."

Ukip leader Nigel Farage brushed off suggestions that his own party's second place was a result of Labour's unpopularity rather than voter enthusiasm for Ukip.

Mr Farage told Today: "According to all the experts, this is the second fluke in a row that we have produced.

"People vote for us because they agree with us. They agree with us that we should be friendly with Europe, trade with Europe, be good neighbours, but not have our laws made there.

"We have managed to move on from a result five years ago that was considered to be the high water mark. We are up on those elections. We have done extremely well. We have come second nationally. We are very happy people."

Mr Farage said it was time for Labour to dump Mr Brown as leader.

"He has always derided us and said the things we stand for are nonsensical," said the Ukip leader. "Now we have beaten him in a national election.

"It is time Gordon Brown went and I am confident that now there will be many Labour backbenchers signing that petition to get rid of him."

Lord Mandelson arrived in Downing Street shortly before 8am.

The grim-faced Business Secretary walked briskly into the building without stopping to talk to the media.

He was preceded by Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls arrived some minutes later, smiling weakly as he entered Number 10.

Conservative leader David Cameron, speaking outside his home in west London, said: "I am very pleased with these results. Together with the local elections, I think they show an enormous gap opening up between Labour and Conservative - almost getting twice as many votes as Labour last night.

"Now what we need is obviously, the next election should be a general election, and just as Labour has lost the trust of the British people, I want the Conservative Party to work hard to win that trust.

"Just as Labour has failed, we have to work hard to show how we can succeed."

He added: "One of the reasons we want a general election is that the British public are angry that they are being locked out of passing judgment on this whole expenses scandal. The longer we put off an election, the greater that anger will be."

Ms Harman said she was "dismayed" by last night's result but insisted the Brown administration would not give up.

She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "We are not through the global economic crisis yet and the last thing the Government should do now is throw in the towel.

"We are dismayed by the rejection that the voters have dealt out to us but it doesn't change the fundamental responsibility that we have in Government to take this country through, to protect businesses, to protect people's jobs. That's the responsibility that rests on our shoulders."

Ms Harman acknowledged there had been "turbulence" among Labour's ranks about Mr Brown's leadership, but insisted the party would unite around him.

"What we won't be doing is wringing our hands, being disunited, turning in on ourselves," she said. "There has been turbulence, undoubtedly, but our reaction needs to be and will be not to turn in on ourselves, not to be disunited, but to think about what we have got to do, what our obligation is.

"Our obligation is to sort out the economy and protect people and sort out the expenses problem and we will do both these things.

"I think there is nobody better placed in terms of taking the economy forward than Gordon Brown."

Asked if Mr Brown could survive tonight's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, when he is expected to face the anger of backbench MPs, she replied: "Yes, because he will do what the country needs him to do and what the Labour Party expects him to do, which is to sort out the economy and clean up the expenses."

Today's results are Labour's worst in a nationwide poll since the 1910 General Election, when their leader was George Nicoll Barnes and their vote share was just 7 per cent.

At the end of the First World War, Labour polled 21 per cent of the vote in the 1918 election, since when they have never taken less than 20 per cent - until today.

Even under Michael Foot, the party scored 27.6 per cent in 1983, their worst result in a General Election since 1918.

Labour's vote share in European Parliament elections always exceeded 30 per cent until 1999, when it was 28 per cent. That fell to 22.6 per cent in 2004.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson put Labour's poor performance down to voters' anger at the expenses scandal, and disunity amongst Labour MPs.

But he refused to answer a question about whether Mr Brown should continue as Prime Minister.

Speaking as he arrived at an international trade conference in London, Lord Mandelson said: "I think what's interesting about these results is Labour voters have not switched en masse to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or other parties.

"In the main, what they seem to be doing is registering a protest by withholding their vote and staying at home.

"I can understand why they're doing this.

"They are furious about the MPs' expenses and allowances at Westminster and, frankly, they're furious, too, about what they see as disunity amongst Labour MPs at Westminster.

"It is simply not possible for people to say 'I resign today, but you should vote Labour tomorrow or the day after'.

"So it is perfectly clear to me, to get the Labour vote back and out voting again, we need to clean up the mess of expenses and allowances at Westminster, and do that quickly.

"But we have also got to see unity restored amongst Labour MPs."

Mr Brown's authority was further diminished with the resignation of another member of his Government, Jane Kennedy, and a Labour MP's withdrawal of support from the Prime Minister.

Sally Keeble, backbench MP for Northampton, said Mr Brown had failed to communicate his "vision" or create a stable, united Government.

In a letter to her contituents, she said: "There has to be consistency and credibility, not just a statement of values but an explanation of how they will be put into practice.

"To achieve that we need a leader who can articulate that vision and let our country and the party move on."

After frenzied talk last week of an plot to oust the Prime Minister, there was still little sign today of a co-ordinated effort to ease him out.

However, MPs will re-group in Westminster this afternoon and a meeting tonight of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) could provide a focus for discontent.

Mr Brown, who is today reshuffling his lower ministerial ranks, will seek to face down opposition in an address to the PLP.

Election results: Gordon Brown 'to limp on' despite voters deserting Labour - The Guardian, link (aqui)

Gordon Brown's face shows the strain of a dreadful week, with European election results only adding to his woes. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Andrew Sparrow on the European election results Link to this audio

• Labour share of vote below 16%
• Tories surge as BNP wins first Euro seats
• Junior minister Jane Kennedy resigns
• Labour rebels to meet later today

• Patrick Wintour, Deborah Summers and Matthew Weaver
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 June 2009 14.17 BST

Gordon Brown will limp on like a "wounded elephant" unless Labour rebels can garner the necessary 70 signatures to force a leadership challenge today, insiders predicted as the party suffered its worst electoral result since the first world war.

In a devastating night for Labour, the party won just 15.8% of the popular vote, allowing the far right British National party to clinch its first two seats in the European parliament.

Worse than expected results for the prime minister saw Labour pushed into second place by the Tories in Wales for the first time since 1918, suffering its lowest vote in Scotland since before the first world war and humiliatingly finishing third to Ukip nationally.

As Brown put the finishing touches to his cabinet reshuffle with an announcement on the lower-ranking ministerial posts, he suffered a fresh setback when he was forced to sack Jane Kennedy, the minister of state for the environment, after she refused to sign a pledge of loyalty to the prime minister.

"In the end, I could have stayed if I had given that pledge of loyalty," Kennedy told Sky News.

There was few surprises in the middle-ranking posts confirmed by Downing Street with most keeping their current jobs, some with slightly added responsibilities.

During a night of unremitting gloom for Downing Street, the Tories pulled more than 10 points ahead of Labour, with Ukip in second place. The BNP secured its first significant wins in British politics when its leader, Nick Griffin, became an MEP in north-west England, and Andrew Brons, a former leader of the National Front, won in Yorkshire and Humber.

The major parties blamed each other for the drift to the far right reflected in results across the country.

Labour's drubbing will lead Brown to offer concessions to his ­backbenchers by promising to delay plans for the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail and to bring forward proposals for an inquiry into the basis for the Iraq war. The prime minister is battling to ensure a backbench rebellion does not spread to the left of the party, or to MPs in Labour heartlands where the party fared worst last night.

Rebel leaders will meet later today in advance of a pivotal meeting of the ­parliamentary party at 6pm tonight to analyse the highly varied result and decide if they have enough support to mount a challenge to Brown.

A leading Labour rebel, Barry Sheerman, said last night he was prepared to meet the challenge posed by the party's chief whip, Nick Brown, to put up or shut up.

Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor and close friend of Tony Blair, called on Brown to go, saying: "I believe if we change leader then we can go into the next election, whenever it was, so much stronger."

However, Labour insiders believe that the real danger point for Brown may have passed unless the rebels can today muster the 70 signatures required to force a leadership challenge.

"He will limp on like a wounded elephant," a source said. "The party will not allow him to take us into the next general election but after last nights results we can't risk anything that would trigger a general election now."

Sheerman, the Labour chairman of the schools select committee, and the man who will challenge the party's high command by calling for a secret ballot on the leadership, described the results as "ghastly and a disaster".

The rebels want a minimum of 50 MPs to sign up to their cause before they go public with their names. Some want to appeal to the prime minister to stage a secret ballot on his leadership as way of establishing whether there is confidence in him.

Labour's European meltdown was amplified on a continental scale last night as the centre-left across the EU suffered defeats despite an economic climate from which it should profit. The most significant outcome was in Germany, the EU's biggest member country, where the Social Democrats (SPD) came in 17 points behind Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and their Bavarian CSU ally.

In France, and Italy the centre-right also scored victories while Spain's socialist government lost to the conservatives.

European elections at-a-glance

• The Labour share of the vote was just 15.8% – down 7% on the equivalent European elections five years ago.In Cornwall, the party came sixth behind the Cornish Nationalist party. In south-east and south-west England, it came fifth behind the Greens.

• The ­Conservatives came first nationally with a vote of 27.7%, Ukip was second with a vote of 16.5%. Labour came third (15.8%) and the Liberal Democrats fourth (13.7%) as they did in 2005. Turnout was about 34%.

• The British National party hailed their triumphs in the north-west and Yorkshire and Humber. Brons said it was the first step for the UK getting freedom from the EU dictatorship.

• Tthe Tories won 25 seats, Ukip 13, Labour 13, the Lib Dems 11, and the Greens two.

La réussite de la Prius de Toyota fait des émules - Le Monde, fr - link (aqui)

AFP/TOYOTA MOTOR - Une chaîne de montage de la Prius dans une des usines de Toyota City au Japon, en octobre 2003. Le constructeur japonais a décidé une appréciation de 1 000 yens par mois des salaires.

LE MONDE | 08.06.09 | 15h12 • Mis à jour le 08.06.09 | 15h12

Toyota City (Japon) Envoyée spéciale

Casquette vissée sur la tête, tee-shirt Toyota sur le dos, cheveux colorés et oreilles percées, Akihito, un ouvrier de 28 ans, s'active autour de la nouvelle Prius, la troisième génération de cette voiture hybride (double motorisation, électrique et essence) que le leader mondial de l'automobile a lancée le 18 mai. Nous sommes à l'usine de Tsutsumi située à Toyota City, dans la banlieue de Nagoya (sud-ouest du Japon). Ici, comme dans toutes les usines du groupe, pas de gestes inutiles, le "Kaizen", ce processus d'amélioration continue inventé par le numéro un mondial de l'automobile et que tous les constructeurs ont copié pour améliorer leur productivité, règne en maître.

"Ici, toutes les cinquante-sept secondes, une nouvelle Prius sort d'une des deux chaînes. Mais on peut encore descendre à cinquante-cinq secondes !", indique avec fierté l'ingénieur Takeshi Nomura.

Depuis son lancement, la Prius est devenue la lueur d'espoir du constructeur. Toyota a enregistré 110 000 commandes et son objectif de 400 000 ventes - dont 60 000 en Europe - d'ici à la fin 2009 pourrait bien être revu à la hausse. Pour faire face à la demande, le constructeur a augmenté la production à 50 000 unités par mois, contre 43 000 initialement. "Depuis début juin, nos ouvriers effectuent des heures supplémentaires. Nous avons embauché des intérimaires, et certaines usines nous "prêtent" des ouvriers", indique Takahiro Fujioka, le patron de l'usine. Cela faisait bien longtemps que Toyota n'avait pas connu une telle embellie. Au mois de mai, la Prius a pris la tête du classement des ventes au Japon avec 10 915 unités. En France, la nouvelle version sera lancée le 12 juin.

Mais le pionnier des voitures hybrides - sa première Prius date de 1997 - n'est désormais plus tout seul sur ce marché. Il doit faire face, depuis février, à la concurrence de l'Insight. L'hybride de Honda a également connu un démarrage foudroyant. En avril, elle s'était classée numéro un des ventes au Japon - une première pour un véhicule hybride dans l'Archipel. Mais en mai, l'Insight s'est retrouvée reléguée à la troisième place.

Officiellement, les dirigeants de Toyota affichent une grande sérénité. "Lorsque nous avons commencé avec la Prius, elle faisait rire tout le monde, aujourd'hui tout le monde en parle. Tant mieux !", lance Masatami Takimoto, vice-président chargé de la recherche.

"Nous sommes très en avance sur la technologie hybride par rapport à nos concurrents. Mais c'est vrai, Honda surfe de manière très habile sur la vague que nous avons créée", indique un autre cadre.

Car pour rentrer rapidement sur ce marché, Honda a décidé de casser les prix. Au Japon, l'Insight est vendue moins de 2 millions de yens (14 500 euros). Cette agressivité commerciale a obligé Toyota à baisser lui aussi ses tarifs. La nouvelle Prius est vendue 2,05 millions, et l'ancien modèle est même toujours disponible au prix de 1,9 million de yens, contre 2,33 millions de yens avant le lancement de la nouvelle version.

"Toyota ferait une grande erreur en voulant rivaliser sur le terrain du prix avec Honda car la Prius est plus grande que l'Insight et présente de meilleures performances", indique Christopher Richter, analyste chez Calyon à Tokyo. La Prius affiche 3,9 litres d'essence aux 100 kilomètres, contre 4,4 litres pour l'Insight, et des émissions de Co₂ de 89 grammes par kilomètre, contre 101 grammes. La différence se jouerait aussi sur la qualité du moteur. Celui de l'Insight, plus simple que celui de la Prius, et donc moins cher à développer, serait insuffisant pour propulser un véhicule de sa taille.

Toyota s'enorgueillit aussi de n'avoir jamais remplacé une batterie en onze ans. Alors que de nombreux constructeurs travaillent sur le lithium-ion, Toyota a choisi le Ni-Mh (nickel métalhydrure). En 1996, il a créé une coentreprise avec le groupe Panasonic qui lui fournit ses batteries. Mais le nickel offre une autonomie en tout-électrique de quelques kilomètres seulement. Le constructeur travaille lui aussi sur le lithium-ion pour proposer des voitures hybrides rechargeables. D'ici à la fin de l'année, il mettra sur le marché 500 véhicules rechargeables en leasing.

Toyota entend bien garder son avance sur ses rivaux en matière de véhicules propres. Et espère ainsi sortir de la crise plus rapidement qu'eux. Aux Etats-Unis, premier marché de la Prius, il entend bien profiter du durcissement des réglementations écologiques annoncées dernièrement par Barack Obama. "Aujourd'hui, nous proposons douze véhicules hybrides. En 2010, nous aurons multiplié par deux notre offre et en 2020 nous aurons un modèle hybride dans chacune de nos gammes", assure M. Takimoto. Sans s'avancer sur une date précise, le constructeur dit vouloir vendre un million de véhicules hybrides.

Que deviendra alors la Prius ? "Elle restera l'icône de la technologie hybride de Toyota", assure Takeshi Uchiyamada, vice-président de la production et père de la première Prius. En réalité, elle sera plus que cela : une vraie marque avec une gamme de modèles.

La guerre que se livrent Toyota et Honda sur le marché nippon a au moins une vertu. Les Japonais, qui bénéficient désormais d'une prime à la casse pour les véhicules de plus de treize ans et d'un bonus écologique, se ruent sur les voitures vertes. En mai, si les ventes ont reculé de 19,4 % sur un an, la chute a été beaucoup moins sévère que sur les mois précédents. En avril, le marché avait plongé de 47,1 %.

Nathalie Brafman

Article paru dans l'édition du 09.06.09.

"François Bayrou aura du mal à se relever" - Le Monde, fr - link (aqui)

LEMONDE.FR | 08.06.09 | 12h28 • Mis à jour le 08.06.09 | 14h14

Gérard Courtois, directeur éditorial du Monde, a analysé, au cours d'un chat, lundi 8 juin, les conséquences des élections européennes du dimanche 7 juin au niveau français. Il a estimé qu'"avec 8,5 % des suffrages, François Bayrou ne me semble plus disposé du tremplin pour aborder la prochaine élection présidentielle" et qu'il est "très probable qu'une partie de ses troupes va hésiter à le suivre et probablement se rallier à la majorité".

Anba : Ne faut-il pas relativiser la victoire de l'UMP quand on observe que le total droite-extrême droite ne fait pas 40 % ?

Gérard Courtois : Ce n'est pas aussi simple. En 2004, le total droite-extrême droite était de 36 %. En 2007, de 44 %. En 2009, de 42 %, largement dominés par l'UMP malgré la responsabilité du pouvoir. En outre, compte tenu de la faiblesse des oppositions et de l'échec de François Bayrou, il ne fait pas de doute que Nicolas Sarkozy dispose de réserves au centre et probablement aussi chez les écologistes. On devrait le mesurer lors du prochain remaniement, où le chef de l'Etat poursuivra sa politique d'ouverture dans ces deux directions.

L'UMP a fini au premier rang. M. Sarkozy peut-il et va-t-il se servir de ce résultat pour poursuivre, voire accélérer sa politique au plan national ?

Gérard Courtois : Le succès de l'UMP, en dépit de la crise, lui donne indéniablement des marges de manœuvre supplémentaires. Le sondage que nous avons réalisé avec TNS Sofrès/Logica hier témoigne que plus du tiers des Français souhaitent que les réformes engagées par le gouvernement se poursuivent et 32 %, qu'elles s'accélèrent. Un gros quart seulement (27 %) souhaite qu'elles ralentissent.

Nicolas Sarkozy a donc les coudées franches. Pour autant, les problèmes de fond auxquels il est confronté restent entiers : quels choix économiques pour tenter de réduire au maximum l'impact de la crise et du chômage ? Quels choix fiscaux pour tenter de maîtriser l'endettement du pays ?

Ce qui est certain, c'est que l'anti-sarkozysme, qui était le pari unique de François Bayrou et le pari principal du PS, a échoué. Et Bayrou et le PS ont oublié une chose : pour être convaincant, l'anti-sarkozysme aurait dû être accompagné d'une alternative politique crédible. Cela n'a pas été le cas.

A trop cogner sur le chef de l'Etat, les centristes et les socialistes ont inquiété sans offrir de solution.

Chris : Comment expliquer que les droites au pouvoir sortent victorieuses du scrutin alors que la crise les met plutôt en difficulté non ?

Gérard Courtois : La réponse est double. Les droites au pouvoir en France, en Italie, en Allemagne, ont été habiles, ont repris à leur compte les thèmes de la régulation économique qui faisaient partie du patrimoine de la gauche et dans l'inquiétude générale provoquée par la crise, elles ont su rassurer.

A l'inverse, la gauche française, comme les gauches européennes, est apparue tétanisée par cette crise, prise à contre-pied par l'argumentaire du chef de l'Etat et sans aucune imagination sur des propositions nouvelles.

Fred : Martine Aubry peut-elle continuer à la tête du PS après une telle défaite ?
Kate : Le PS est-il mort ?

Gérard Courtois : Le score du PS est terrible pour lui. Michel Rocard avait fait pire en 1994, mais c'était après treize ans de pouvoir mitterrandien, à la fin d'un cycle.

Aujourd'hui, le PS ne fait guère mieux, mais c'est après huit ans d'opposition et la mise en place d'une nouvelle direction il y a six mois seulement.

Martine Aubry, dont la responsabilité n'a pas été directement mise en cause au soir du scrutin par ses "amis", entend à la fois assumer sa responsabilité et poursuivre la rénovation qu'elle estime avoir engagée.

Ce sera une tâche extrêmement difficile, même si les candidats à sa succession éventuelle ne semblent pas se bousculer.

En effet, le PS n'a surmonté aucune de ses crises : ni de leadership, ni d'unité (tellement les divisions du congrès de Reims semblent encore vives), ni de programme ou de projet tellement l'ensemble du logiciel socialiste paraît obsolète.

Les socialistes collectivement donnent l'impression d'être "burn out", comme on le dit des cadres déprimés par un stress répétitif depuis trop longtemps.

Ils semblent sans espoir, sans vrai désir de revenir au pouvoir, sans capacité de réinventer un projet.

Le plus inquiétant pour eux est qu'ils n'auront trouvé à l'échelle de l'Europe aucun modèle dont ils pourraient s'inspirer.

Alexis : Au regard de la faiblesse de son score, le Parti socialiste doit-il reconsidérer sérieusement une alliance avec les écologistes, et plus globalement, avec la "gauche de la gauche" ?

Gérard Courtois : Premièrement, le scrutin du 7 juin démontre que le PS n'est plus le parti dominant de la gauche. Même si l'écologie politique n'est pas encore un courant structuré, elle oblige le Parti socialiste à repenser en profondeur son projet pour l'avenir.

Deuxièmement, la question de l'alliance au centre avec François Bayrou, qui était lancinante depuis deux ans, risque de devenir secondaire à l'avenir compte tenu de l'échec du président du MoDem ; mais c'est autant de réserves électorales et de dynamiques politiques dont les socialistes risquent d'être privés en 2012.

Troisièmement, un rapprochement avec la gauche de la gauche, qui correspondrait probablement à la tentation des militants socialistes, ne semble pas en phase avec les attentes du pays pour que soit redéfini un projet de gauche crédible.

Non seulement Olivier Besancenot fait un score médiocre par rapport à l'espoir mis dans le Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste, mais en plus, le Front de gauche constitué par les communistes et Jean-Luc Mélenchon parvient tout juste à sauver les meubles de l'ancien PCF. De ce côté-là non plus le PS ne dispose pas d'alliés éventuels dynamiques.

Reste les écologistes, avec lesquels la compétition va s'engager. Le PS dispose encore d'un appareil et d'un puissant réseau d'élus locaux. Les écologistes peuvent être une boîte à idées, mais rien n'indique pour l'heure que ces deux forces parviendront à se conjuguer.

Ronron: Le résultat d'Europe Ecologie est-il dû à une prise de conscience de l'environnement, ou à une défection chez les autres partis comme le PS par exemple ?
Pasteur_Bergman: Le résultat d'Europe Ecologie signifie-t-il un regain d'intérêt pour l'écologie ou traduit-il simplement la recherche d'une opposition crédible au gouvernement ?

Gérard Courtois : Le succès des écologistes me semble un succès positif. Daniel Cohn-Bendit a su, d'une part, fédérer tous les courants écologistes en France. Il a su tenir un vrai discours européen et il se trouve aujourd'hui en phase avec une vraie prise de conscience des enjeux écologiques pour l'avenir de la planète.

On l'a constaté depuis quelques années avec les succès des films d'Al Gore et, aujourd'hui, d'Arthus-Bertrand ; cela s'est traduit évidemment en France par le Grenelle de l'environnement organisé par le président de la République, et cela correspond désormais à une préoccupation majeure des Français et, plus largement, des Européens.

Le choix en faveur des listes écologiques n'est donc pas un choix par défaut, c'est un choix qui correspond à une attente réelle d'une Europe capable d'apporter une réponse globale à ce défi planétaire.

Elias : Les Verts sont-ils aujourd'hui les leaders de l'opposition ? Leur succès ne sera-t-il qu'un feu de paille ?

Gérard Courtois : Les Verts ont pris hier un avantage psychologique et idéologique. Mais ils ne sont pas encore en position de force politique.

Leur enracinement dans le paysage politique français reste aléatoire. Rappelons-nous qu'ils avaient quasiment disparu de ce paysage en 2007, où Voynet plus Bové n'avaient réuni que 3 % des suffrages.

L'enjeu pour eux désormais est à la fois de rester unis et de s'organiser, mais sans perdre leur inventivité et leur souplesse. Jusqu'à présent, depuis leur émergence il y a une vingtaine d'années, ils n'y sont pas parvenus.

Elias: François Bayrou pourra-t-il se relever cette fois-ci ?

Gérard Courtois : Personnellement, je ne le pense pas. Même si sa certitude d'être le seul à pouvoir battre demain Nicolas Sarkozy reste entière.

Mais il s'est totalement trompé de stratégie pour ce scrutin en axant toute sa campagne sur l'anti-sarkozysme et en oubliant l'essentiel, c'est-à-dire son credo européen, qui lui avait permis de percer à 12 % en 2004.

En outre, son empoignade télévisée avec Cohn-Bendit a tourné à son désavantage : il voulait apparaître sage et serein, il est apparu nerveux et vindicatif.

Enfin, à 8,5 % des suffrages, Bayrou ne me semble plus disposé du tremplin qui lui était indispensable pour aborder la prochaine élection présidentielle. Il est très probable qu'une partie de ses troupes va au moins hésiter à le suivre et probablement se rallier à la majorité.

On le verra très vite avec le choix que fera Michel Mercier, l'un de ses plus anciens soutiens, qui fait l'objet d'avances insistantes du chef de l'Etat pour entrer au gouvernement.

Le président du MoDem sort donc de ce scrutin très affaibli, isolé, et sans avoir pu faire la démonstration que sa stratégie était pertinente.

toto4587 : Un rapprochement des Verts et du MoDem, comme le souhaite Corinne Lepage, est-il possible ? Crédible ?

Gérard Courtois : Il y a probablement des passerelles idéologiques entre ces deux formations, aussi bien sur la question européenne que sur la question écologique.

Mais l'enjeu de l'élection présidentielle en France est trop structurant pour esquiver la question des hommes. L'obsession de François Bayrou de retenter sa chance en 2012 a toutes chances de bloquer une vraie démarche de rapprochement.

Ce qui pourrait bien arriver, en revanche, si les écologistes parviennent à s'organiser, serait le ralliement à leur cause d'un certain nombre de figures du mouvement centriste.